Biotic Seed Dispersal
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The dispersal of seeds can be split up into two major classes: biotic or abiotic dispersal. Abiotic dispersal methods use wind, water, or other abiotic forces to distribute seeds, while biotic dispersal relies on the movements of animals or other organisms for dispersal.
The advantages of biotic dispersal are several. Animal movements are predictable and correlated with environmental cues, allowing plants to time seed production to correspond with these movements and environmental changes. Animals can also carry large, heavy seeds with more food for seedling growth thus enhancing the chances for reproductive success of the parent species. Then too, animals have food preferences that impose a sort of consistency on their movements and feeding locations. The presumption here is that if an animal shows a preference for a food type, and the source plant for that food has a selective preference for certain niches, as the animal moves from one location or niche to another in search of that food these locations will be relatively well suited to colonization by the seeds from the plant. And finally, animals can recognize color and odor cues. Mechanisms of animal transport include several different passive methods. In some instances, transport relies on some sort of adhesive (burrs, glues, etc.) to attach seeds to the animal. In other instances, ingestion[섭취] and subsequent off-site defecation[배변] of seeds is the method of dispersal. And finally, fruit hoarding[비축하기], or excess food production satiates[실컷 만족시키다] seed predators. Biotic seed dispersal may inspire a biomimetic systems for the distribution of materials in industrial cycles |
